human action. There are many such omissions ; but that which I shall venture to enlarge a little upon, is certainly of the most paramount importance-I mean, the constant neglect with which these overweening gentlemen treat the names of the heroes they describe. "What's in a name?" said a wise man-I forget, at the present moment, his own; but that is not essential. "What's in a name?" I may be asked by a hundred voices in a breath-by the would-be philosopher, who would cut the throat of the officious friend who should advise him to render practical his high-minded system, by publishing it to the world without his name: by the fevered politician, who would sacrifice health, fortune, life itself, and all but that reputation without which life were a bubble, to tack on Right Hon. to his name: by the learned fair one, the bright azure of whose eyes is far outdone by those stockings, so "darkly, deeply, beautifully, blue;" and, lastly, by the sentimental novelist; who, however she may bravado it to me, would perish sooner than change Sir Marmaduke Glenmore into Giles Gibbs, or her fondly cherished Selina de Cleveland into plain Susan Jones! Whoever, then, you may be--novelists, philosophers, place-hunters, or blues-whoever, in the teeth of all that is sound in criticism, and true in nature, persist in affirming there is nothing in a name, I, Bartholomew Bouverie, who, thank heaven, was never yet ashamed of any one of the seven liquid syllables that set me together, throw you the gage of defiance! Think you the Grecian democracies, turbulent and anarchical as they were, would have been any thing better than a rope of sand, had it not been for that soft, musical, and inimitably flexible language, which threw a spell over the most insignificant places, and illuminated the poorest characters? Again, when Alexander and Darius went forth to battle it at Issus and Arbela, think you the dominion of Asia was the only thing at stake? Nonsense! I, Bartholomew Bouverie, tell you, it was the mighty strife between the Trisyllables and the Quadrisyllables, that wound up to so fearful a pitch the attention of the world! To come to more modern times reflect on the glorious career of the Protestant hero, Frederick the Great: and I should like to see the man, woman, or child, that would have the face to tell me, that, had the name of that great man been Timothy, he would have exerted the same energies, and attained the same glory! Why, Timothy's tactics would have carried rout and confusion in the very title! What is the reason Jack Straw, or Hob Carter, so egregiously failed in their attempt to overthrow constituted authorities, and equalize the peasant and the noble ?-why, on the other hand, have Mirabeau, and La Fayette, revolutionized their country, and upset Europe, with all the facility imaginable? I confess I know of but one really good reason, the superiority of these French names to those English. Who can wonder, provided he has never seen the inside of Bedlam, that such a man as Napoleon Buonaparte won the fields of Austerlitz and Marengo? not, assuredly, by his sharp sword, or his sharper wit-these would be. the conjectures of weak minds-but by his unheardof, pleasing, pliant, melodious, Tuscan name! I shall not put myself to any further pains to prove what, perhaps, after all, my readers may think required no proof; but shall content myself with setting before them the pathetic complaint of a luckless correspondent, which will, I doubt not, excite the same sensations of pity in their bosoms (especially amongst the gentle sex) which it moved in mine. "Dear Mr. Bartholomew Bouverie, "I am one of those unfortunate beings, whose peace of mind has been utterly destroyed by the lack of "my good name.” Do not mistake me: my reputation, as an attorney, has never been attacked, even by the bitterest sons of calumny: I abhor all radicals, Papists, and smugglers, as well (modesty alone forbids me to say better) as the best Christian in England: but, Sir, when I tell you my name, my abominable baptismal appellation, you will see what it is that grieves me, and will, I am sure, sympathize with my affliction. I am, Mr. Bouverie, of an old Roundhead family-the more's my sorrow; and it has been from time immemorial the custom of our branch of the Stubbs's to christen every second son by the outlandish and rebellious name of Bring-the-King-to-the-Block! In the innocent days of my childhood, when I was greeted by my brothers and sisters, with the pretty, harmless, abbreviation of Blocky, which my father, when in a drunken, or grumbling humour, used frequently to improve into Blockhead, then was I contented, because I was ignorant! 'Oh happy days! once more, who would not be a boy!' "But too soon I arrived at years of discretion, and as my father (heaven rest his soul!) had saved enough money to procure me a liberal education, forthwith I found myself in the vicinity of Eton Playing-fields; where, alas! I was soon made sensible of the horrible nature of my prænomen, by the jeers of my more fortunate comrades. I will not detain you by enumerating the various modifications of my name, which clung to me, like so many phantasms of a night-mare, during my long and laborious passage from the Nonsense to the Upper Division. Had I been a scamp in my conduct, or a leveller in my political opinions, I might have borne with patience this series of unprovoked mortifications; but ever since I read Mr. Southey's Laureate odes, the poetic feelings of a Stubbs have stedfastly attached me to Church and King: nor shall I ever forget the solemn warning given me by my godmother, when I first stepped blubbering into the Eton Tally-ho, "that though there was many a text in the Bible which talked of the holy prophets anointing kings in Israel, she had looked twice through, with her spectacles on, from Genesis to Revelations, without finding that they ever anointed a Republic!" I am now a respectable attorney; but my unfortunate name has deprived me, to my certain knowledge, of many a fee. Pray, Mr. Bouverie, as, from the moment I saw your elegant name in the newspaper, I was sure you were a kind old gentleman, can you point out any mode of relief? Believe me your devoted (Would I could say anonymous) Servant, BRING-THE-KING-TO-THE-BLOCK STUBBS. THE DOCTOR. E. L. Quod medicorum est I ONCE knew a doctor, of credit and skill In mixing a potion, and gilding a pill, Though he kill'd half his patients, yet praise he ensured, |